


Snowbody Knows The Trouble I'm In

by hiddenlongings



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Bad Puns, Christmas, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Krampus - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5396300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddenlongings/pseuds/hiddenlongings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The blow, for all it was expected, came as a tremendous shock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowbody Knows The Trouble I'm In

* * *

If one more Hell's Bell's thing happened Harry was going to scream. Or croak. The marks on his throat were already turning a lovely shade of purple in the exact shape of a monstrous hand.  He might not be talking much for a while actually.  Any number of people would be thrilled.

The fields around him were covered in a thick layer of fluffy snow that made dragging his wrenched ankle and seriously sore body all the more difficult as he struggled towards the nearest road.  He was hell and gone from Chicago having disappeared from the city in a swirl of fire and hurricane like winds as he fought with the latest invader that had decided Chicago was the place to be.

Leaving behind his trench coat that had been forcibly torn from his body as monster and wizard tussled noisily through the gaping crowd. The leather might have been spelled to protect him from bullets, magic, and fire but the gaping jaws and cruel talons were known to have negative effects on spells of that nature and they had torn through the coat like it was so much sticky taffy.

Damn Krampus' anyways. Every single one of them were over powered, over sensitive, and completely covered in a thin layer of ash that left his skin and clothes covered in dark swirls of the stuff. They'd be a beast to clean but a t-shirt and jeans was easy enough to replace.

The latest one hadn't been much more than a teenager which Harry could only be grateful for. The older they got the smarter they were.  As it was it had taken nearly every spark of magic in his body to first remove the rampaging little prick from the mall, where he was trying to scoop up children waiting for Santa, and then less than neatly tear him limb from limb with everything at Dresden's disposal.

His force rings were completely emptied, his staff refused to do more than spit some pitiful sparks of fire before turning an unhealthy gray, his magic was, for the moment, completely kaput.

As Dresden dragged himself towards the road he could here a soft susurration that began to get louder and louder and Harry looked around frantically as he tried to find the source of the noise.

Too late he saw the incoming sled, complete with child passenger, coming straight towards him.  Harry tried to turn and run but he was far too late.

He heard a high pitched squeal as the sled flew into the air.

"Look out!!!"

The blow, for all it was expected, came as a tremendous shock and his breath was punched out of him with a pained grunt.

The plastic sled hit him low while the child's body hit him high on the back sending him careening forward before he landed like a star fish flat on his face in the snow.

Dresden could feel the slow weeping of blood on his back where the sled had shattered into jagged little knives. That wasn't what really concerned him though.  His upper back where the kid had hit him, hard enough that his vision had grayed at the edges for a moment, felt like it was broken.

Harry tried to inhale and couldn't, worried frantically for a moment about his lungs, before he tried again with his mouth and realized the reason he couldn't breath through his nose was because that was definitely broken. 

"Oh My God! Mister? Mister are you okay? Did I kill you?"

"Ow." Harry managed to wheeze out as he clutched at the fluffy snow with cold numbed fingers.

* * *

Now a lot of things had tried to beat Dresden unconscious slash dead in his time.  He'd been hit a lot. It always hurt but he'd always managed to power through it.  This time though Harry didn't even want to try moving. His back might be broken, he'd just fought a giant sootball of a hormonal teenager, and damn it he still hadn't figured out what to get Molly for Christmas.

At least the snow wasn't judging him.

The kid had bolted on squeaky plastic boots as soon as she had heard him speak. Shrieking something about an ambulance that maybe should have worried him. But honestly the snow was nice, it was numbing all of his bruises and was actually kind of soft. Besides a little magical exhaustion meant he probably wouldn't set off any of the more sensitive electronics unless he really worked at it. So score for maybe receiving actual medical attention that didn't come from a Polka loving little coroner with perpetual crazy eye.

It felt like it was a very long time before he heard the low buzz of an engine getting closer and closer.  Harry opened the eye that wasn't buried in snow for a long moment as he eyed the snowmobile contraption heading towards him with a grim faced pair of EMT's riding it.

Yay! He wouldn't have to walk.

The two EMT's a man and a woman came over dragging what looked suspiciously like another sled as they hurried to his side.  The woman's eyes widened a lot and Harry wondered why for a moment before he remembered the sled wounds.

They were probably strikingly apparent against the white of his shirt and Harry turned his best puppy eyes on them as they got closer.

If they hadn't been such consummate professionals he thought they both might have recoiled.

Ah right, people found him a teensy bit intimidating at times, Dresden let his face fall into more neutral lines and let himself slump more deeply into the snow.

He couldn't hide just how tall he was, but at least he could pretend to be grievously injured for a while. Well, maybe not pretend so much as play it up.  His back was a mixture of sharp stinging aches from the imbedded plastic and deep throbbing pain that seemed to resonate through his entire body whenever he so much as twitched his back.

"Sir, can you stand?"

Probably, but Harry wasn't too keen on trying just at the moment.

The male EMT knelt down next to him and after cutting Harry's shirt away, sucking in a deep breath at the brightly colored shards of plastic that were digging in to Dresden's backs like so many neon sporks, gently palpated his back.

"I don't feel any broken bones sir, please could you try to stand? You're going to be a little difficult to move."

Harry let his head sink deeper into the snow for a brief moment before he moved his arms underneath him and pushed.

The searing pain in his back turned into a wild fire pain that seemed to suck all of the air out of the world as he collapsed back down with a muffled yelp.

Bad idea. Such a bad idea.

"Nope. No way. Not moving. Leave me here and bury my body in the spring."

His throat was still sore but the pain in his back seemed to overwhelm everything else and he managed to talk without croaking too much.

He could hear the female EMT huff out a breath of light laughter before she calmed down and slid the sled up so it was right next to him.

"I'm afraid that wouldn't be possible sir. This is snow place to leave you."

"Puns. Really? We've known each other thirty seconds and you've already pulled out the big puns?"

"We're going to pick you up and move you sir." The male EMT said with a slow drawl. "Try not to tense up too much. I know you're a bit of a long shanks but you should mostly fit."

"You're putting me in a sled? Like a Christmas Pine?"

"All right and one...two...and tree."

Harry yelped again as they picked him up in one smooth lift but couldn't hold back a breathless chuckle as he realized what the other man had said.

"Pun of us. Pun of us."

Harry chanted even as he was strapped firmly to the sled, which wasn't quite long enough, and the two EMT's remounted the snowmobile.

Thankfully the snow was soft enough that he was feet and shins skimmed the top of the snow without pain as the engine purred to life and they sped off towards hopefully civilization.

Or a small town in Illinois.

Dresden wasn't going to be picky as long as nobody got any photographs of him being dragged behind a snowmobile with a good quarter of his body sprawled over the edge.

He was face down so the snow that was being blown up by the snowmobiles blades was hitting the crown and back of his head instead of his face but the ride seemed to go on and on and he could feel small stones hidden in the snow stinging him through his hair.

When the snowmobiles engine finally puttered down Harry's focus was almost completely on his back so he kept his eyes clenched shut as he felt the EMT's hands on him again and clenched his jaw tight against the expected pain.

He still wasn't prepared for the jolting shock of it.

Harry was still face down but at least he was on a cushioned cot instead of the hardened plastic. The neck brace wasn't too comfortable but hey things could only improve from here right?

* * *

He was wrong. He'd never been more wrong in his life.

Between the blood still streaming out of his nose and the way his eyes were watering Harry was having a hell of a time taking in a full breath. The, now that he had gotten a really good look at her, very attractive female EMT hovered over him while her partner drove the ambulance. He was desperately trying to breath through his mouth but the still swelling bruises from the Krampus were making it very difficult.

The EMT, Sam, had kept her focus completely on him the entire time. Crouched near him and carefully prodding at the slivers in his back with a pair of tweezers. She leaned closer to his face and after a moment smiled apologetically.

"It looks like your nose is broken."

"Yeah." Harry said, voice muffled by bedding. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Unfortunately that means you shouldn't blow but would you like a tissue?"

"Please."

There had probably been a point in Harry's long and checkered past when he had felt more emasculated than he did now but honestly as the pretty young thing that was probably half his age wiped down his face with a Kleenex he really couldn't think of one.

The EMT, Clark, that was driving the ambulance yelled something back to Sam that made her face clench with regret.

"Okay, Harry, now I don't want you to be too worried but I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"We're about to go over some railroad tracks."

"What!?!"

"Now just try to relax."

The slowly dying pain that had throbbed through his back sprang back to life with a vengeance as the large vehicle bounced and jolted over the tracks and this time Harry couldn't suppress a full blown yell of pain as everything wrenched. After a long moment he was finally able to relax again.

The movement had completely ruined all of Sam's efforts to clean his face off and he had smeared blood and snot all over his face and the blanket beneath him.

"Okay, Harry you're doing great!" Sam's voice was strained even as she tried to keep it chipper.

Another muffled call from Clark had her head twisting around in shock before she turned back to Dresden.

"All right man I'm really sorry about this but it looks like we're coming up on another set of railroad tracks."

Harry clenched his eyes shut and let his fingers dig into the starchy fabric beneath him as he tried to prepare for round two of what felt like off road ambulance riding. Still not prepared.

This time when they went over Harry was completely silent for an instant before he felt everything fade to black as he briefly lost consciousness.  When he came to a moment later all Dresden could do was snuffle wetly as he tried to keep from flailing against the restraint around his neck.

If his magic hadn't been dead in the water Harry was pretty sure he could have taken out every piece of electronic equipment that the ambulance had with that little adventure.

There were several long moments of silence while Harry tried to regain all of his faculties so it took him a long couple of seconds to realize that Sam looked extremely apologetic as she leaned in close again.

"Let me guess." Harry moaned quietly. "Another railroad track."

"No, Harry, I'm afraid not. We're coming up on a gravel road but at least we should only be on it for a couple of minutes."

Harry could only huff out a sad sigh before he clenched up again and started holding his breath.

* * *

When Harry finally trudged out of the hospital nearly four hours later he was clutching a bag with his bloody shirt and pants and wearing a pair of scrubs that were far too short in the legs and the arms.

There had also been pain medication. Lovely, thoughtful pain medication. Given by a doctor. In his butt. While a pretty intern watched.

The shot had stung for several long moments before blending in with the deep muscle bruising and the stitches required from the sleds impact with his back.

Once the medicine started to work everything got better. Everything still hurt of course but the medicine meant that he didn't really care.  He was just happy to get the hell out of there before he started accidentally jinxing the x-ray machine.

Right up until he saw a perfectly coiffed and dressed Gentleman Johnny Marcone waiting for him.

Johnny was leaning up against the sleek black car with his arms crossed and one foot kicked over the other.

"How in the Hell are you here? I'm at least 100 miles from Chicago."

"More than that Mr. Dresden. But I heard about your little tussle with a murderous homeless man and hoped that I might be of assistance."

Harry thought about. For several long moments he thought about first finding a taxi willing to take him to Chicago. Then he thought about paying for the taxi to take him to Chicago.

Then he thought about Marcone's cars heated leather seats and the Diet Coke that he had started keeping stocked in the little chill chest just for Harry.

"Oh man. Fine. Yes. Thank you, I would love a ride."

"Who knew that a little pain medicine would make you this agreeable."

"I'm not paying for any cleaning you'll need to do on your seats" Harry said peaceably enough as he settled. "Blood can probably be wiped right off of leather. Right?"

"I am fairly certain, Harry, that there is no right way for me to answer that question."

   

* * *

 


End file.
